The mind: Sometimes the greatest enemy one can encounter in life.
I stare absently at my laptop computer screen. My writing program sits open, and yet I continue to study the blank screen. Blink after blink, the cursor taunts me, Write something important. Dazzle me with your artistic expertise.
It mocks me.
It’s 9:00am, and I’ve been sitting at my writing desk for nearly two hours.
The words I seek elude me, and I find myself distracted by my thoughts of her.
Natalie.
It’s been four days since Natalie left me via text message, and I’ve been unable to prevent myself from rereading the text every few minutes.
Mike,
There’s no easy way to write this, but I’m going to try to anyways.
I can’t be with you anymore. I’m sorry but it’s over!!
Her words had attacked me like a stranger in the night.
Lurking with malicious intent, Natalie’s premeditated act of violence upon my soul was catastrophic.
Her succinct and lack of explanation as to why it was over had destroyed me.
It had destroyed my world.
I just don’t understand.
My friends have told me to move on.
That she isn’t right for me.
That she treats me terribly.
That it’s her issues, not mine that ultimately deconstructed our partnership.
I refuse to believe their lies…
I remove myself from the desk and walk to the couch where I fall face first atop the cushioned seats.
If I go to sleep, the voices in my head haunting me may dissipate for a few hours.
My eyes close and I drift away from reality.
Upon waking at 11:11am, my mind immediately retreats back to Natalie.
I pick up my iPhone, and scroll through every one of our messages.
Yet again.
I can’t help it.
As if attempting to decrypt some sort of secret meaning from it, I analyze each and every word in my head over and over until I border on insanity.
This is how my mind works. I’m an over thinker with a penchant of analysing every single moment of an event.
I tend to drive myself crazy, at times.
Analyze it from this perspective and then analyze it from that perspective, and so on… and so on.
I know I wasn’t the best boyfriend but did I really deserve this?
I grit my teeth.
My mind begins to drift…
As a professional writer, I have a set schedule I live by.
I tend to write from 7am until 3pm, Monday to Friday.
This schedule has allowed me to publish four novels so far, and I was currently working on a fifth.
But there would be no writing today.
Though my thoughts weren’t getting me anywhere, I couldn’t prevent my mind from dwelling on every single aspect of the relationship between Natalie and myself.
Good or bad, I would continue to rehash the same moment over and over again without any solid discernment.
All of the regrets, all of the moments where I should’ve done or said (or not done or said) something but didn’t (or did) were flooding back to me.
What I could’ve done better.
And the big one…how this entire breakup was my fault.
I was driving myself mad.
And I had to do something to get my mind off of her.
I had attempted to see her one last time.
I had confronted her outside of her apartment, but she refused to speak to me. She simply brushed me aside and walked away from me.
I had wanted to follow her…
Following the implosion of our relationship, I had removed myself from society.
I left my apartment in the big city and relocated to a cabin I had rented (without having to use a credit card, which was a nice perk) up north.
It was March, so it wasn’t too difficult to track down a decent dwelling.
I had been here for the past three days.
Isolated, the cabin was situated in a dense forest containing monstrous pine trees that yearned to scrape the heavens above.
The front of the cottage contained a small yard and a stone driveway situated off to the right side of it. The rear of it backed onto Hemingway Lake, a small body of water defined by its rich blueness.
It was the only man-made structure located on the shores of the lake.
For the past three days, I hadn’t encountered another living soul out here.
It’s as if I was the last human being on earth, and I liked that…
THE REST OF THE STORY CAN BE FOUND HERE;
